We use a public economics framework to consider how pharmaceuticals should be priced when at least some of the R&D incentive comes from sales revenues. We employ familiar techniques of public finance to adjust standard pricing prescriptions in the context of global diseases, in which...

This paper addresses the question of how the responsibility for the delivery of social services, including health, education, and welfare programs, should be divided between state and central governments. We combine a random voting model and the incomplete contracts paradigm to formalize the...

This paper compares the distortions associated with alternative inter-governmental allocation rules when a central authority provides inputs for the provision of social services by local governments, and when local governments differ in their needs. Under a quantity-based mechanism, the input...

The paper studies the design of inter-governmental transfers when redistribution is effected through the public provision of a private good (education) by local government agents. The central government does not necessarily have the same preferences as the local agents regarding the relative...

I study the optimal joint taxation of income and health expenditures in a model in which individuals face idiosyncratic prices for leisure and health. First-best redistribution based on potential wage rates and health status is not feasible. Within a class of quasi-linear schedules, the...

Cost-sharing rules for paying physicians have been advanced as a way of generating incentives for the provision of quality care while recognizing their potential negative effects on production efficiency. However, the optimal sharing rate typically depends on the degree to which the physician...